Life Can't Be Paused
by Cindylou30
Summary: Red hair cascades to hide Pepper's face as she bows her head, hands folding in her lap. "You changed," she says quietly, "and you didn't need me anymore." A oneshot in which Tony Stark is suffering from memory loss, and it may just be his lucky break.


**A/N So, hi, Cindylou30 here! I haven't written on here in four years- fact-check me, I might be off by a year or so- but I used to be part of a great community and have good friends here. A little while ago I watched an episode of _IM:AA_ , which prompted me to dust off the metaphorical cobwebs from my first ever completed story, which was fanfiction for this show. I miss some of my friends I had on here, and if you're still here and remember me from the beginning on Nick, or my stories from here, let me know! I'd love to catch up. If you don't know me, I hope you still enjoy this short oneshot! Have a great December!**

 ** _IM:AA_ doesn't belong to me- if it did, I'd have given it another season.**

"I knew you'd be here."

Tony doesn't startle at the sound of Pepper's voice, although she has appeared quietly behind him; he'd sensed her armour a long ways off. He turns to face her, metal clinking as her armour retracts into a backpack, something inside him twisting once again as he notes the differences in the way she carries herself, in the longer length of her hair and the sad glint in her eyes and the foreign way that she looks at him. She catches and holds his gaze for a moment before he turns away, his eyes once again settling on the New York City skyline. A light breeze ruffles his hair as Pepper crouches to sit by him, her legs swinging off the dock near his own.

"How'd you know that?" He barely conceals the listlessness in his voice.

"Because I know you. You- you come here a lot. Whenever you get upset. You told me sometimes you like to go someplace other than the armory or the labs to think." She smiles at him, timidly, as if she isn't sure what effect it will have on him. He hates it. She used to be so vibrant, full of life, _chatty._ Another aspect of her personality he'd taken for granted. "It's a good thing, right? That you even remember this place?"

"I didn't," Tony corrects her, then hesitates. Maybe he should have let her hold on to her shred of hope. "I don't. I was following a few repeated paths my armour took, hoping it would help me remember." He nods to the backpack by his knees.

"Oh."

They sit in silence like that for a few minutes, neither sure what to say or if in fact anything else should be said at all. He scratches idly at his neck, covered by thick medical gauze and cemented to his skin by a mint-scented ointment. Similar bandages cover his temple. Tony, for once in his life, is having trouble wrangling his own convoluted thoughts into something coherent, something sensical. A year. He'd lost a year of his life from a head injury, just like that. He couldn't remember anything, from the food he'd eaten to the fights he'd fought to the inventions he'd created. It was like a hard-drive passing through two magnets. Nothing remained, for him, of the last eleven months, and yet they'd happened all the same. Time continued as clockwork, all the same.

"Tony, your dad... God, I don't even know how you're coping."

It was nice to know Pepper was still as tactless as ever. Tony nearly smiles, though his throat is constricting painfully.

"It's fine," he says. It's not fine.

"It really isn't," Pepper pushes. "I know you don't want to talk about it, but I also know you, and know that it isn't good for you to keep things all... Bottled up." Her soft brown eyes again find his own, cerulean melding against warmed and melting chocolate. For a moment he can almost convince himself no time has passed at all.

"I'd just gotten him back," Tony finally says, breaking their gaze as his eyes return to the scene in front of them, where the sun is just beginning to set over the horizon. "I'd just gotten him back, just found out he was even alive, and now... He's gone, for real this time, and I can't even remember the time I had with him." _A heart-attack_ , Roberta had told him sadly, a hand light on his shoulder as his face crumpled, his shoulders sagging as his worst fears crawled into existence. _You were with him in the end. He told you how much he loved you, and how very proud of you he was._

One fight gone awry, one lost battle against a foe he can't even recall, and it was all just.. gone. Kaput. Now he was reaping the consequences of mistakes he didn't even remember making.

Tony again looks at Pepper, this time earnestly searching her expression for something lost, something necessary. "I've lost so much," he says thickly, his eyes prickling. For some reason he doesn't care. "I can't even remember what happened to us."

He'd found the ring, still in its box, at the back of his closet earlier that day.

Pepper smiles ruefully. "Life got complicated when you became CEO. You didn't have time for a lot of things anymore. I think that your dad... I think a lot of things changed you. You put on the suit less and less, and stopped talking to Rhodey after he enlisted..."

"And I, what, neglected you? Didn't spend enough time with you, didn't treat you right? What?"

Red hair cascades to hide Pepper's face as she bows her head, hands folding in her lap. "You changed," she says quietly, "and you didn't need me anymore."

The implications of her words hit him all at once, like the Hulkbuster armour had grown an AI of its own and decided to tackle him. He'd expected it to be his own fault- yes, Pepper could be emotional and erratic at times, but his anger often bested him and led to the majority of their problems- but he hadn't expected to have been the one to have terminated the relationship. "How could that have happened?" She looks up at him quizzically as Tony lets his guard down, lets her see the pained expression knitting his brows and hardening his eyes. "I do need you, you know," he says, "just like I needed you a year ago. I don't know what was wrong with me, and I can't remember, but I know that I don't want to lose you because of a bone-headed mistake I made when I was- I don't even know. Another version of me?"

"That other version of you was still you," Pepper says slowly, carefully. She holds her composure carefully. "Future you for you, but for me that was only _three_ _days_ ago. It doesn't matter when it was, because regardless it was still entirely _you_."

"Under circumstances and in a life that I don't even know," Tony argues. His cheeks are flush with heat. A thought suddenly occurs to him that humbles him, makes him pause and worriedly re-evaluate the conversation. "And you," he asks, "how do you feel about me?"

Pepper laughs, a quiet, pitiful laugh. "Maybe I'm stupid, but I've never changed."

That's all the information he needs. Tony gingerly takes Pepper's small hands in his own, achingly slow so as to make sure that she doesn't attempt to pull away or protest in any other way. He arches his body towards hers so that they're facing each other, knees bumping together as she does likewise.

"I can't erase the past," he whispers, "and I definitely can't remember it. But this, you-" He coughs, shifting his gaze. "I've never been very good with this stuff," he winces, prompting at last a genuine laugh from Pepper. It reminds him of the peal of a glass bell. "I need you, Pep. I want you, still, and if you'll suffer with me I'd like to call a cosmic re-do."

"And if you remember the reason you left in the first place?" she murmurs, wide eyes shining nonetheless.

"Then I'll know how much of an idiot I really was."

"And if I've changed, too?"

"I think I might just be able to handle that."

Pepper's lips expand into a wide smile as she leans forward, arms encasing Tony's upper body as she presses her lips to his own. The kiss is chaste but hard, and Tony smiles against her as he in turn wraps his arms around her waist.

"I love you, Tony," she whispers, and for a moment Tony is at a loss for words. From what he remembers, they'd never said those words, that sincerest of pledges, even though he'd known it. This seems to occur to Pepper shortly after, but as the blush begins to creep up her neck he smiles and presses his lips to her forehead.

"I love you, too, Pep."


End file.
